[H-GEN] ext2 or ext3

[Ben Fowler]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
[ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]

Shaun Nykvist wrote:

> Hi all
>
> I have been using ext2 on my redhat boxen for quite some time (before 
> the hard drive crashed - didn't lose any data though so I am pleased 
> in that sense), however, after this crash I had a colleague trying to 
> convince me that ext3 was a better way to go - can someone enlighten 
> me with any pluses or minuses to using this type of file system???


Hi,

The benefits of using a journalled filesystem are fairly well-known: it 
can dramatically cut down on the time to fsck your disks upon startup, 
since instead of running a full fsck, it merely reconciles the volume 
journal.  Additionally, the advantage of ext3 is that it's drop-dead 
simple to set up: all you need to do it to use tune2fs -j /dev/hdaxx to 
create the journal, add ext3 support to your kernel, edit /etc/fstab and 
you're in business.  Another trick you might try is to disable the 
periodic fscks on your partititions (I'm told this is safe, and cuts 
down on annoying delays every 20 or so time you boot up).  Ext3fs has 
the additional advantage in that kernels that only know about ext2fs can 
also read and write ext3fs volumes, and (I think) vice versa.

The obvious disadvantage though it that the journal file tune2fs creates 
takes up a fair amount of disk space.  I can't tell you offhand, since 
it's never been a problem for me, but it's something worth keeping in 
mind.  One the whole though, I think that making use of a journalled 
filesystem, if available is a good idea.

-regards,

Ben.



--
* This is list (humbug) general handled by majordomo at lists.humbug.org.au .
* Postings to this list are only accepted from subscribed addresses of
* lists 'general' or 'general-post'.  See http://www.humbug.org.au/